Sunday, October 31st, 2004

Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)

Toronto’s own Emm Gryner was an honourary Cardigan this Fall when she toured with the band on the Chicks With Attitude caravan as keyboardist and backing vocalist. The Cardies website has a cute little interview between bassist Magnus Sveningsson and Emm about their respective home and native lands of Sweden and Canada. Emm has become quite the sideman to the stars, having sang backups for David Bowie on his world tour a couple years ago, including making her (inter)national television debut with him on Saturday Night Live. All this and she still manages to be a prolific solo artist – her new album, Songs Of Love & Death, is supposed to be out now but I’ve not managed to find a copy of it anywhere yet, not even on her online store (which I’m disappointed to find is now run through Musictoday which means excessive shipping costs to Canada). And she’s hella cute, too. What’s not to love?

Thanks to Exclaim!, I’m now the proud owner of a DVD I didn’t really want and a video game I can’t play. I was one of the winners of an online contest for a Van Helsing prize pack which consisted of the movie and XBox game of the aforementioned film. I’m certainly not going to look a gift horse in the mouth, especially when it looks like Kate Beckinsale in a corset, so I’m not complaining. I’ll have to sell the XBox game, though, since I didn’t win the grand prize which included a game console. Oh well, the luck only goes so far.

To pick up the prize, I had to go to the DVD release/Hallowe’en party for Dawn Of The Dead. They were running the movie on the monitors behind the bar and I actually watched the whole thing, sans sound. It’s really not hard to follow a zombie movie even without the dialogue. I’m curious to see it properly though, I’m sure I missed some crucial plot points and all that. And it was so nice to see Sarah Polley back on the screen. There was also a musical component to the night, courtesy of The Tijauna Bibles. They’re a gimmicky sort of surf/punk band who perform in Mexican wrestling masks – Fun enough stuff, but I didn’t stick around for their second set.

The Guardian names off their choices for the 10 worst cover songs ever. It’s a fairly Brit-centric list, but I can agree that Duran Duran’s take on “911 Is A Joke” is a crime that transcends borders.

Observant readers may notice that I picked up a copy of Luna’sRendezvous yesterday. This should not be interpreted as an indication that Jetset’s lame-o distribution has finally gotten copies in stores – it actually means that I lucked out and found a used copy before there were any new ones available. I feel a little bad for not giving Dean, Britta, Sean and Lee the pittance in royalties they’d have gotten if I’d bought it new, but they have only their label to blame. And anyway, I’ve already bought tickets to see them in two different cities in a couple weeks, so there. As for the album itself, I’ve given it a few listens and I think it’s a marvelous swan song. The live-off-the-floor production really gives it a warm, intimate vibe and start to finish, I’d say it’s their most consistent record since Penthouse. There’s even more excellent guitar work (read: solos!) than has been present on the last couple records. The two tracks that Sean takes vocals on are a real surprise – if you didn’t know it was him singing, you might just think that Dean had discovered a slightly different vocal style, they sound that similar. It’s a little odd to have “Astronaut” make another appearance, but it’s a slightly different version than the one on Close Cover Before Striking EP (I don’t know if it’s a remix of the original version or a new recording), but it fits well in the flow of the record album and is a truly kick-ass song, so it can stay. While I’m still sad that they’ve called it a day, I’m glad that they’ve gone out with such a strong record. Thanks, guys.